Jay Inslee on the Issues

Single-issue voters are common enough. Single-issue candidates are unicorns.

This hasn’t deterred Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, who entered the presidential race on Friday on a bold bet: that a singular focus on combating climate change can distinguish him in one of the largest Democratic fields ever.

Just spitballing here, but perhaps saving people and the planet from climate catastrophe, and creating millions of jobs doing it, should be THE top issue. 2020 must be a referendum on climate action. https://t.co/OGXiUF8Gft

Here is a look at what Mr. Inslee wants to do about the climate, as well as other significant issues, even if he doesn’t emphasize them in his campaign.

Climate change

Projections on the effects of climate change are increasingly dire, and Mr. Inslee argues that combating it should take precedence over all else — though he rejects the premise that it can be neatly separated from other issues to begin with. Extreme weather has exacerbated refugee crises and fueled immigration, for instance. Heat waves and poor air quality affect health.

Mr. Inslee has praised the Green New Deal — a sweeping proposal by some Democrats in Congress that, among many other environmental and economic goals, calls for a fully renewable energy supply within 10 years — for elevating public discussion of climate change and acknowledging the scale of the action needed. But he has also described it as more of an “aspirational” outline of principles than a policy document.

His environmental policy record in his home state is long. In 2015, he ordered Washington’s Department of Ecology to impose a cap on carbon emissions. He created a fund for clean energy, and the state now has extensive solar energy infrastructure and electric buses. While economic damage is a concern for opponents of limiting fossil fuels, Washington had the highest G.D.P. growth in the nation in 2018, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Mr. Inslee also tried unsuccessfully last year to get the Washington Legislature to vote on a carbon tax, which would have been the first in the nation; voters rejected the proposal in November. He then proposed a different series of actions, including running the state’s electric utilities fully on renewable power by 2045, requiring buildings to be more energy efficient, promoting electric vehicles and cutting down on hydrofluorocarbons, which are used in air-conditioners. Hydrofluorocarbon emissions have been growing faster than any other form of greenhouse gas emissions.

In an op-ed in The Washington Post, Mr. Inslee called for net-zero carbon emissions nationwide by 2050 — a longer timeline than the Green New Deal’s 10 years, which experts say is unrealistic. (“Net-zero” could mean either eliminating carbon emissions altogether, or reducing them and using offsetting technologies to cancel out the rest.) He also called for a “100 percent clean-energy grid” and “massive investments” to transition buildings, industries and transportation to renewable sources.

Other issues

While Mr. Inslee has made clear that he intends to focus overwhelmingly on climate change, he is on the record supporting liberal policies in many other areas.

• He has been outspoken in favor of gun control, and after the shooting in Parkland, Fla., last year, he confronted President Trump on live television, denouncing Mr. Trump’s suggestion to arm schoolteachers. Among other measures, he wants to expand background checks and restrict some semiautomatic weapons. His advocacy on the issue goes back many years; he lost his seat in Congress after voting for the 1994 assault weapons ban.

• He supports universal health care in some form and recently proposed a government-funded “public option” on Washington’s insurance exchange, which he cast as the first step toward a universal program.

• While he has not released a federal tax proposal, he recently introduced a plan in Washington State that would increase several taxes and institute a 9 percent tax on some capital gains. (The state doesn’t tax capital gains now.) His budget would increase spending by about 20 percent to fund anti-climate-change programs, education and mental health services, and to protect endangered orcas.

• He backed legislation to increase Washington’s minimum wage from $9.47 an hour to $12. Voters approved that increase in 2016, and it has been phased in gradually.

• He supports legalizing marijuana and announced a program in January that will pardon some Washington residents previously convicted of marijuana possession.

• He opposes the death penalty as currently administered and suspended executions in Washington in 2014, saying the risk of wrongful convictions was unacceptable. “There are too many flaws in the system,” he said at the time, “and when the ultimate decision is death, there is too much at stake to accept an imperfect system.”